Marvel Avoided Perfect MCU Ending For ‘Ant-Man 3’ Due to ‘Endgame’

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Ant-Man talking to Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man 3

Credit: Marvel Studios

Avengers: Endgame (2019) made Marvel Studios realize that one ending wasn’t going to work for Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man 3.

Ant-Man in 'Ant-Man and the Wasp'
Credit: Marvel Studios

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The unlikely Avenger, Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang/Ant-Man, has been through quite a bit over the past few years. After being in prison, stuck in the Quantum Realm, fighting villains like Josh Brolin’s Thanos, Ant-Man ends up back in the Quantum Realm, but this time, he discover a terrible threat. Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) is trapped there, and now he has the means to escape.

In Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), the Ant-family gets stuck in the Quantum Realm and does find a way out, with everyone making it out safely. While fans might enjoy Kang’s role in the movie, Act 3 tends to enrage fans after Kang gets defeated by ants and taken out by Ant-Man and get a happy ending.

Ant-Man not happy with what he is looking at
Credit: Marvel Studios

For a lot of fans, this was unexpected and ruined a lot of fan’s expectations for how Marvel would handle Kang in the movie. By showing off in earlier scenes that Kang was stronger and could easily defeat Scott and Hope (Evangeline Lilly), then how come he couldn’t win a fistfight?

Marvel fans did notice that reshoots for the movie did happen right before the movie’s release, and people couldn’t help but wonder if Marvel Studios had quietly used that time to change the ending. Sadly, Jeff Loveness, the writer for Ant-Man 3 and Avengers: Kang Dynasty (2025), confirms the worst. The movie’s ending was indeed changed quite a few times, and the main reason might surprise you.

Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man in 'Quantumania'
Credit: Marvel Studios

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The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Loveness didn’t believe that Scott should stay in the Quantum Realm in the end because of how Endgame and other Ant-Man movies have placed the actor there quite a few times now and felt it would be too “repetitive” for fans to watch:

“Yeah, absolutely. That was all stuff we debated, and on paper, it seemed thrilling. But at the end of the day, we’d literally be copying the exact same beat from the end of the last ‘Ant-Man’ movie. There also weren’t a lot of ways to go that were different from ‘Endgame.’ If Scott gets trapped in the Quantum Realm like he does in the last movie’s ending, then the only way to go is that he gets out of the Quantum Realm like he does in ‘Endgame.'”

Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" (2023)
Credit: Marvel Studios

The biggest thing to take away from this is that Marvel didn’t want to take the traditional route with Ant-Man. Sure, leaving Scott Lang in the Quantum Realm another time would’ve been predictable and appear to be repetitive, but Marvel did have a different scenario that could’ve happened. This time, Scott wouldn’t be floating in the Quntum Realm waiting for a rat to save him, like in Endgame, but he would have Hope with him in an universe with people who just beat Kang.

Instead of having Kang be taken out by his Multiversal core, the villain could’ve escaped and be on Earth, leaving Scott and Hope trapped knowing that the villain is roaming around in their timeline and there’s nothing they could do about it. Fans wanted Kang to win and the promotion for the movie teased this, but the trailers showed too much and led fans astray in the wrong way.

Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man
Credit: Marvel Studios

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Marvel’s fear for copying what has happened with Scott leaves the movie to end with Kang being taken out of the equation and Scott going home carefree as if nothing happened. He does remember that Kang warned him about a terrible threat — the Council of Kangs — will come, but he shrugs it off at the end. Phase Five so far isn’t living up to fans expected, but at least Kang the Conqueror isn’t going anywhere.

Do you like the Ant-Man 3 ending? Do you wish they didn’t change it? Let Inside the Magic know what you think!

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